pull my heart up to the surface
by Yotsubadancesintherain5
Summary: An attempt at cutting hair brings up deep, dark memories.


Between the dullness of the knife and AJ's squirming the hair didn't budge at all. His arms knocked against her shins. Clementine tried another scrape against a handful of his hair and nearly nicked her fingers.

"Goofball," she said, all even-tempered and her tongue taut against the roof of her mouth, "Stay still. We need to keep this hair short."

"No," he snapped back and moved his shoulders violently to wriggle free from her general vicinity.

Clementine ran a mantra in her head, to not get too angry with him over this, and to explain, and that this was normal for his age. There were foggy memories of this before, way before the dead started walking again, and her mother's faint voice chastising her to stay still.

"This is to keep the monsters away," she said, and she made a cursory glance around the forest to be sure there were none that shambled by, "And to keep bad guys from grabbing you."

"But it hurts when you pull." AJ sulkily put his arms around his knees.

"I know, but I want you to stay safe," Clementine said. "So just wait. It won't be long if you wait."

She tried again but the knife wouldn't give, and AJ wrenched himself free from her grasp.

"Dammit, AJ, this isn't a game, I need-"

Something swirled and broke in her, and her breath came out quick and frantic. She remembered the advice, she remembered how it felt when that man on the dairy farm yanked her hair, hard enough to make it feel like it would be ripped from her head, and Lee lunging forward to protect her before the click of a gun stopped him.

People died because of accidents, loose clothing or too much weight on a fragile surface, and so many faces twisted in agony and fear, the sounds of their death cries, _I'm so sorry, Sarah_, as she cried out for her father and _It must be easy to be a pretty little girl, nobody expects you to do a damn thing_, but she tried so hard to save Luke, there was nothing she could do, and they left her after a bullet tore through her shoulder. _You're strong, Clem, you can do anything_, she tried so hard to believe it then but that was before there was so much weight on her shoulders.

And then, after all that and there was this little spark of hope left, they took AJ and what if life took him again, but forever because she couldn't do this?

So many lifetimes ago Lee let her hope that the world could go back to normal, that this would all just be a nightmare after the world built itself up again, but the world was rotting and the people left were tearing each other apart for more borrowed time.

"Clem?" AJ asked, his eyes shiny with unshed tears, as he tried to understand and just couldn't. Even in this world there were things he was naïve about.

A dull thought asked when she had last cried, truly cried until it felt like she wrung out her soul. The farm, the first one so long ago with the screams and the tractor running, when there was no time to find her parents, Kenny and Jane killing each other, the dog bite that tore open her arm, or was it when _Lee_-

"I'm sorry, Clem," AJ said, and he handed her the knife that she had dropped. "I won't move, I promise."

Clementine looked at it, a dull instrument for hair cutting, and she breathed in deeply.

"AJ, we will wait until we find a better knife," she said. She knelt down and grasped his shoulders tightly. "But until then, stay away from the monsters. Promise, promise me that no matter what you'll run away from them."

"I know, I promise," he said, startled at her tone.

She hugged him so tight that he squeaked. When she let go, she walked to the backpack nearby and placed the knife inside, before going back to AJ.

"Let's go look for one," Clementine said.

AJ took her hand, some additional comfort, and they began walking back to the road.

To alleviate the mood in turn, Clementine said, "You know, you look a little like DJ Broccoli."

"I do? I never knew!"

She smiled at his giddiness, and made a silent vow to find good people out there, so that there could be a semblance of normalcy for him.

**A/N: Originally posted on AO3 on February 18 2019**


End file.
